Gazelle
*Real name: Giselle Smith *Alias: Gazelle *Identity: Public *Alignment: Good *Gender: Female *Occupation: Superhero *Family: unnamed parents *Affiliation: Legion of Super-Heroes (Earth-Prime) *First appearance: Legion of Super-Heroes vol 5 #37 (Feb 2008) *Universe: Earth-Prime *Alternate versions: none known History On Neptune’s moon of Triton, a team of Legionnaires encountered a young woman, Giselle Smith, who differed substantially from the Tritonian norm. All Tritonians are the product of genetic engineering to enable them to survive Triton’s extremely cold environment, but Giselle’s genemap took a few unexpected detours. Most Tritonians, though generally humanoid, have pale scaly skin. Giselle’s was rosy pink, marking her as a pariah among her people. Frequently targeted by bullies, the only thing that had saved her was her ability to control her own body metabolism, accelerating it to gain temporarily increased speed, strength and agility, or suspending it to induce a hibernatory state. Despite using violence (usually) only in self-defence, Giselle was frequently detained and punished for her actions, hated by her peers to an extent that, upon the arrival of a race of alien destroyers bent on eliminating the Tritonians, Giselle was deliberately excluded from shelter by her people’s highest-ranking official, and left to fend for herself during the attack. As the LSH battled the destroyers, they were surprised to find themselves joined by Giselle, whose skill and ferocity impressed even Timber Wolf. Invisible Kid conceived an instant crush on Giselle, and helped her several times during the conflict – without becoming visible, as he was stricken by shyness. After the invaders were repelled, both Saturn Girl and Timber Wolf made overtures to Giselle, but she rebuffed them, saying the United Planets was another thing she had little use for. The smitten Invisible Kid subsequently checked up on Giselle, but learned from her remarkably unconcerned parents that she had been once again arrested, and then disappeared. Sometime later, the formation of the United Planets Young Heroes was announced, with Giselle – now ‘Gazelle’ – among its members. Created as a more ‘manageable’ version of the Legion, the UPYH rapidly came unstuck when their undertrained and mostly inadequately-powered members were sent into situations beyond their abilities. The UPYH ‘managers’ had falsely promised to turn her into a normal Tritonian, so a disillusioned Gazelle successfully applied for Legion membership. Almost immediately afterwards, she was selected to infiltrate the virtual-reality homeworld of the alien destroyers to bring their menace to an end. Projected into VR as a cybernetic avatar, Gazelle finally met Invisible Kid, and reciprocated his interest (though unknown to her, Invisible Kid had asked Brainiac 5 to ‘tweak’ his avatar to make him more imposing). While Gazelle’s team attempted to stop the battle from within, the rest of the Legion confronted the destroyers’ physical bodies. The battle went badly until Brainiac 5, inspired by Invisible Kid’s ‘hack’ of his own body, ‘hacked’ the VR environment to give himself supreme power, and the destroyers surrendered. Gazelle was sufficiently relieved to overlook IK’s deceit. When they attempted to leave the VR environment, a further shock awaited; their bodies had been destroyed in the battle, but disaster was averted when Brainiac 5 cloned replacement bodies for them. Earth-Prime Gazelle_LSH37_rr.gif Gazelle LSH48 rr thumb.gif gazelle1a.gif Category:Characters Category:Good Guys Category:30th Century Category:Legion of Super-Heroes (Earth-Prime) Category:Earth-Prime Category:United Planets Young Heroes Category:G Category:Homeworld: Triton